Bill to share control of California’s electric grid advances

Wind turbines are seen near high tension power lines outside of Tracy, Calif., on Thursday June 14, 2018.

Photo: Michael Short, Special to The Chronicle

Legislation to create a new, regional organization to manage the electricity grid across several Western states survived a vote in a key California Senate committee Tuesday, even as several senators expressed serious misgivings about the bill.

Members of the Senate Energy, Utilities and Communications Committee voted 6-1 to advance the bill — AB813 — which would cede control over California’s power lines to a multistate organization operating a regional electricity market. Only Sen. Andy Vidak, R-Hanford (Kings County), voted against it.

And yet, several senators said they were not yet satisfied with the bill.

Opponents fear that a regional grid operator, possibly including such coal-mining states as Wyoming and Utah, could undermine California’s clean-energy policies and open California to meddling from a hostile federal government intent on supporting fossil fuels. Supporters consider it a way to spread the use of renewable power throughout the West. And they note that the state’s current grid manager, the California Independent System Operator, already works under federal oversight.

Sen. Bob Hertzberg said he voted in favor of the bill Tuesday to give its author —Assemblyman Chris Holden, D-Pasadena — time to answer concerns about how the new, regional organization would function while protecting California’s climate and energy policies. If those protections aren’t included, Hertzberg said, he would lobby to kill the bill, which now heads to the Senate Judiciary Committee.

“I generally like the notion of regionalization,” said Hertzberg, D-Van Nuys. “But I’m very unhappy about the way this bill has proceeded.”

David Baker covers energy, clean tech, electric vehicles and self-driving cars for the San Francisco Chronicle. He joined the paper in 2000 after spending five years in Southern California reporting for the Los Angeles Times and the Daily News of Los Angeles. He has reported from wind farms, geothermal fields, solar power plants, oil fields and an offshore drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico. He also visited Baghdad and Basra in 2003 to write about Iraq's reconstruction. He graduated from Amherst College and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. He lives in San Francisco with his wife.